Lies in the Storm
by KatLeePT
Summary: She hoped he was coming, but they both know what's coming.


She feels their approach as she stays still in the darkness. She doesn't move a muscle as they approach, the smaller one's eyes glowing and glaring up at the larger one. They step, in unison, closer to her bed. A paw raises. At last, she moves only to say, "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

A smile curves her full, unmasked lips in the night as the Batman freezes to the spot. She hears the confusion in his voice as he questions, "Selina?"

"I was hoping you'd come," she admits to him, her lusty voice edging near a purr as she pushes up in her bed and pass the throng of furry bodies all around her, but to his companion, she repeats, "I wouldn't do that if I were you. He's not really a bat."

Batman almost jumps as the big cat's paw falls softly, deadly claws sheathed, on his behind. He whips around, but the cat's already withdrawing his paw. He looks at his mistress, whose own eyes seem almost to glow in the dark as she stares him down. The liger turns tail and pads silently away.

"You always are protected, aren't you?" Batman comments, turning back to face the beautiful woman in her bed.

She arches an eyebrow at him. "I am just like you're always busy."

"I'm not tonight," he speaks softly.

"I noticed that." He can't see her smile in the darkness of her bedroom. He almost wishes for a light - almost, but he won't admit any fallacies to her. She tilts her head slightly back as the patter of rain drops increase on her roof to a dull roar. "Good sleeping weather, but that doesn't usually keep the criminal element indoors."

"You should know." He grins.

"I'm not one of them."

"No," he agrees, still uncertain as to where exactly her loyalties lay if to any one but herself and her cats, "but it usually doesn't keep you inside."

She shrugs. "A girl needs her beauty sleep, and rain makes purrfect sleeping weather."

He almost melts when she purrs. God, how he loves that sound!

"So I understand everybody's back in Arkham again?"

"Everybody," he allows, "but you." He really doesn't want to have to arrest her again, but she's not doing anything she shouldn't - at least, not yet tonight.

"I don't intend to get thrown in there again." Pride flows in her sensual voice as her chin raises and her eyes lift back up to his. "So what are you doing here tonight? Not working a case, obviously." A smile tugs at her lips as she watches kittens swiping their paws at the end of his flowing cape.

"I came . . . " He pauses, trying to find a better reason, an excuse to play off his behavior, but the truth is, she's always on his mind these nights and during the day time as well. She's only ever but a thought away even when he's in the middle of a hard case. He'd hoped to find her tonight just as he hopes never to have to arrest her again. There are so many other things - so many far _better_ things he much prefers to do with her.

"Selina." Her name breaks from his lips like a dying man's final gasp for water. He burns for her. His fingers flex in his gauntlets, almost reaching for her, but he curls his hands into fists instead and tries again to think of a reasonable excuse for his sudden appearance in her bedroom.

She rises up to her knees, her long, black hair flowing behind her. Her cats paw at her hair, but at least for a second, she only has eyes for him. Lightning flashing outside her open window illuminates her bare, beautiful body, and he suddenly finds it hard to breathe. A kitten's paw swipes pass his cape, scratching his uniform, but he doesn't even notice. He's lost, staring at her. He hears thunder from a distance and thanks God it's not a siren wailing through the night and calling him away from her yet again.

"It's okay," she says, and she reaches for him so that he doesn't have to make the next move. Her hands find his in the shadows. His fists uncurl at her gentle touch, and her fingers slide across his. "You can reach for me," she tells him, but they both know he can't. He doesn't dare. There's always too much at stake.

He should turn away, he knows. He should return to Gotham and her night life. The main criminals may all be in jail, but there's always petty thieves and the normal murderers. There's always a crime somewhere to be stopped, an innocent somewhere to be saved. He wonders if he was a cat, would she save him? His mouth is suddenly as dry as though he hasn't drank anything all night, and he lets her gently tug him closer to her.

She pulls him gently, slowly, letting him come almost at his own pace. He nearly stumbles as he moves forward, his mind caught and warring, as always when she's near, with his heart. She takes his right hand in both of hers and tugs him closer still until she's able to lean forward and catch the tip of a gloved finger with her teeth.

She leans forward, almost to the point of toppling out of her own bed. He knows her elegance and grace are perfection. She won't fall any more than a cat's not likely to land on her own feet. But still, he reaches for her. His left hand, which is now devoid of her touch as she focuses her attention on his right hand, cups her just beneath her breast, and as she leans further forward her breast pushes against his hand. He cups her, his palm stroking her hard nipple through the leather of his gauntlet.

Her soft moan of pleasure almost undoes him completely. Using nothing but her teeth, she tugs his right gauntlet off of his hand and drops it to her floor. Then she licks his finger, brushes her cheek against his palm, and purrs as she nibbles him. "It's okay," she tells him again as thunder roars outside and yet is drowned out by the roar of his own blood in his ears. "You can come to me."

Her cats meow. Lightning slashes. A few of the bigger cats growl softly, their tails thumping the floor. But all he can see are her big, green eyes, her welcoming mouth, and her bare, beautiful, luscious body. He moans as he caves. Suddenly, he's on her bed, her face in his hands, ravishing her lips. She parts for him, and his tongue slides home as her hands quickly undo his uniform. They know every inch of each other's bodies and costumes now, and she frees him swiftly from his clothing.

Tomorrow, he'll wonder about his actions tonight. Tomorrow, he'll try again to explain them away. Tomorrow, he'll find the pain of knowing he did wrong and resolve yet again to not see her again - at least not in this way. Tomorrow, he'll have regrets, but none bigger than the one that hurts the most deep inside of him already tonight: the pain and regret of knowing that this, his love for her that will not be denied, can never last.

It isn't his codename that spills from her lips. "Brrrruce." She leads his face to her breasts as she surges up against him. He inhales her delicious scent and hurriedly, hungrily nips and suckles until she's already panting hard with need for him. Tomorrow, he'll wonder too if she knew he was coming or just hoped, because she doesn't usually sleep in the nude, but tonight, her bare status makes for easier, quicker access.

Soon, in between her gasps of his name and purrs that touch something far deeper within him than anything any one else has touched before her or will after, he's moaning for her as well. She takes him in perfectly, holds him to completion, rocks him with a single lick far more powerfully than any other force ever will, loves him to the point that they'll both be hurting tomorrow. The gasps of their names become screams that drown out the storm rising outside. The wind and lightning are hungry, but they're hungrier still and can only be filled by each other. They move together perfectly, knowing each other's rhythm and matching one another like a hand in a glove . . .

Until it's over. Until she lays, panting softly, beneath him. Until he turns and curls his body around hers as though he can, as though he will protect her, and yet, already, he knows. He knows he's going to have to arrest her again one of these nights. It never fails. He has always has to hurt her, always has to trap her, always has to turn her in. If only she'd do what she should! But to her way of thinking, Selina's already always doing what she should. The people in the world don't matter to her; she sees only the feline innocents and her own greedy needs.

She knows already this was a mistake. From waiting for him out of the slim hope he might appear to letting him come inside of her, she knows she was making the mistakes of a fool in love, but that's exactly what she is. God help her, she is a fool in love! Tears are already beginning to well in her green eyes when they both hear the inevitable sound and their bodies turn tense again.

Something ripples through his muscles. She mistakes it for his desire to rush out into the night, follow those sirens, and save whoever it is needs saving. She mistakes it for his readiness, his willingness to leave her. But she won't hold him. She'll never hold him against his will again. "Go," she whispers.

He closes his eyes against the tears he feels threatening to rise to his surface. He doesn't want to go. He doesn't want to leave her yet again. He doesn't want for this not to work again and again and again, . . . but he already knows it won't. He already knows he can't do his work, the work that only one man can complete, and love her too. He already knows this was wrong, all wrong, . . .

And yet, it all felt so right when he was loving her. His body trembles with need. He wonders if he'd dare stay if she asked him to. If she purred to him again, the last bits of his crumbling resolve might just finish melting away. But she's not purring. She's not asking him to stay. She's telling him to go, and he tells himself that those aren't tears he hears in her voice.

He rolls from her bed, already feeling empty without her pressed against him. He moves through the room with his eyes still shut. He doesn't need his sight to pick up the pieces of his clothes or to avoid her cats, but if he lets himself see her . . . He gulps down his own tears, knowing he might not be able to leave then.

When he's dressed and at her window again, he finally looks back, a part of him still hoping, still yearning, that she'll change her mind and ask him to stay. She's not even looking at him. She's turned completely away from him, her thin, agile shoulders rising and falling gently in what he tells himself is the beginning of her slumber. He was just what she needed tonight, a means to an end, nothing more or less. He leaps out of her window without another word.

Selina's cats circle around her, kneading the bed, bumping her with their heads, stroking her with their tails. Their purrs resonate in her room as the storm begins again. This time, sounds of passion don't rise above the storm for there are none left to give tonight. And the sounds of the storm, and of the resonating purrs that are meant to reassure, are all that drowns out the cries of a broken heart.

The End


End file.
